We should encourage honesty and real opinions, however much they hurt, not jump up and down in mock indignation.

What did Ferguson say that was really that shocking?

We already knew he fell out with David Beckham, Roy Keane and Ruud van Nistelrooy, that much was obvious because he sold them, and here in his book he provides the reasons why.

In response Roy Keane has complained, as reported by the BBC, that, "I remember having conversations about loyalty…I don't think he knows the meaning of the word.”

I bow to no one in my admiration to Roy Keane, a brilliant footballer who I always enjoyed interviewing, but he can’t take that position when he published his own book over a decade ago that criticised some of his former United teammates, including Peter Schmeichel and Teddy Sheringham.

One of the reasons Ferguson sold Keane was because, as he expands upon on in the book and talked about at his press conference on Tuesday, his former captain criticised his teammates in a MUTV interview.

“For some reason he decided to criticise his teammates…We couldn’t accept it,” said Ferguson, as reported by The Daily Telegraph.

Was that Keane knowing the meaning of loyalty?

Of course it would be wrong to hail Ferguson as a beacon of honesty, with his long record of banning journalists and not speaking to the BBC for seven years. In the book too he sidesteps several issues he would rather not talk about.

But football should not be scared of players or managers expressing their real opinions, they should embrace it.

The day after Ferguson’s book was launched, Crystal Palace manager Ian Holloway resigned. He could have made something up and hidden behind a long list of platitudes, but instead, as reported in The Guardian, he was honest and said he was too tired and probably not capable of keeping the club in the Premier League.

So is honesty beginning to creep in to football? Judging by the reaction to Ferguson’s book this week it doesn’t seem wanted.